


A Dream Within a Dream

by kjack89



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Canon Era, Developing Relationship, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 19:24:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8857789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89
Summary: Alcohol was a convenient excuse for the bizarre anachronisms Grantaire tended to utter at the wrong moment, like when he called Jehan’s outfit a hot mess or exclaimed that the bottle of wine he was drinking was the best thing since sliced bread. It explained why he doodled little Mickey Mouses in the corners of his parchment or absentmindedly folded paper airplanes before he remembered that it was some 30 years before the term aviation would even be coined.And it even allowed Grantaire to temporarily forget that in the year 2015, he had been unceremoniously transported back in time to 1830 with no clue how, why, or more importantly, how he was ever supposed to return to his own time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For [@chambergambit](https://tmblr.co/m8YZfzng5S44ujZcRaNKe4g), who requested a fic set in her extraordinary [Stranded Time Traveler Grantaire universe](chambergambit.tumblr.com/tagged/stranded-time-traveler-grantaire). Thank you so much for letting me play in your sandbox!
> 
> Title comes from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem of the same name, which I felt captured the same beautifully painful futility I saw in chambergambit’s headcanons.
> 
> Usual disclaimer applies. Please be kind and tip your fanfic writers in the form of comments and/or kudos.

Grantaire’s fingers tapped a staccato rhythm against the wooden table, and it took a moment for him to place the song -- “Stayin’ Alive”. He smiled slightly at his own dark humor, the last vestiges of the man he had been in the twenty-first century, back when the world made sense.

He missed music most, even battered old hits like the Bee Gees, missed putting his headphones on and tuning out the world or dancing the night away in some twink-filled club. The only way he could tune out the world now was through alcohol, and lots of it.

Alcohol also had the benefit of being one of the few drinks that wasn’t liable to kill Grantaire -- at least, not immediately. He had never paid much attention in any relevant history class, but even he remembered that unsanitary drinking water had been a huge problem in the nineteenth century. Besides, alcohol was also a convenient excuse for the bizarre anachronisms he tended to utter at the wrong moment, like when he called Jehan’s outfit a hot mess or exclaimed that the bottle of wine he was drinking was the best thing since sliced bread. It explained why he doodled little Mickey Mouses in the corners of his parchment or absentmindedly folded paper airplanes before he remembered that it was some 30 years before the term aviation would even be coined.

And it even allowed Grantaire to temporarily forget that in the year 2015, he had been unceremoniously transported back in time to 1830 with no clue how, why, or more importantly, how he was ever supposed to return to his own time.

It had been August of 2015 or October of 1830 -- depending on which version of his life he was considering -- when Grantaire had been dropped buck ass naked on the streets of Paris early in the morning. Thankfully, the first person who came upon him was Jean Prouvaire, who didn’t seem to regard his nudity, his confusing way of speaking or his general strangeness as anything worth more than a slightly raised eyebrow.

Prouvaire had the decency to clothe, feed and even house Grantaire, and once Grantaire had wrapped his mind around the fact that he was really in 1830, really stuck without any modern conveniences or any means of contacting the present, Prouvaire even helped find him work as an artist (though Jehan had been confused when Grantaire first told him off-handedly and without thought that he had been a photographer; he had quickly amended what he said to say that he had made pictures).

And Prouvaire had been the one to drag Grantaire to a meeting of a group of student revolutionaries called Les Amis de l’ABC at the Café Musain, and it was there that Grantaire met Enjolras, the most beautiful man he had ever seen in any century.

Perhaps there were some advantages to being stuck in the 1830s after all.

But of course, not even that could be easy, since Enjolras appeared to be completely oblivious to Grantaire’s advances, with eyes only for the Republic that he sought to build. And where Enjolras was full of a fire that only grew as 1830 turned into 1831 and conditions among the working classes steadily worsened, Grantaire’s insides seemed to turn to lead with dread. Again, history had not been a strong subject for him, but he was pretty sure he remembered only a single sentence about the June Rebellion of 1832, about the events that Enjolras and his friends planned in the back room of the Café Musain, and it hadn’t been particularly positive.

Which perhaps helped explained why Grantaire could never manage much enthusiasm for the Cause, much to Enjolras’s irritation -- to put it lightly.

“Grantaire,” Enjolras seethed one night in late March of 1832, tying his blond curls, frizzy from the spring humidity, back from his face “if the plight of your fellow man is not enough to stir your lazy limbs or dredge anything from you beyond mockery, why even attend our meetings, let alone stay to this hour?”

Grantaire lifted his cup of wine in a mocking toast. “The noble leader must not go without company, particularly this late at night,” he said, his voice heavy with wine. “It is an easy enough task, even for one such as myself, and as my cup has not yet run dry, I see no need yet to retire.”

Enjolras glowered at him. “Wine there may be, but wine may be found elsewhere, and you’ve not yet answered why you bother to attend in the first place.”

“Wine there may be, but not so sweet a visage to accompany it,” Grantaire told him, fluttering his eyelashes in a way he knew would infuriate Enjolras.

Sure enough, Enjolras slammed a hand down on the table, his frustration getting the better of him. “Be serious,” he snapped. “This is no game we play here and I will not have one such as you drag down the revolution that is brewing.”

Grantaire merely snorted in response and took another swig of wine. “Revolution brewing,” he grumbled, more to himself than Enjolras. “Set the timer for 1848 because nought will be accomplished here.”

“If you’re going to do no more than mutter nonsense, do it elsewhere,” Enjolras said, his attention already back on the pamphlet in front of him. “This is far more important than you, and you’ve taken up enough of my time and energy.” He glanced up at Grantaire, something fierce in his expression. “When the people rise, then you will see.”

Grantaire propped his chin on his hand. “And if they do not rise, fair leader? What then?”

“They will rise,” Enjolras said firmly.

“And if they do not?”

Enjolras glared at him. “As I have said, they will.”

“Will you not even entertain the thought?” Grantaire asked, his drunkenness and the utter futility he had felt for the past year getting the better of him. “You plans are contingent on humanity not acting as humanity has always acted in the past and in the future. Surely you must acknowledge that your plans may fail, that you may doom yourself and your friends to an unkind fate.”

Enjolras gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles turning white from the pressure. “I need not entertain anything,” he growled, a dangerous edge to his voice. “And if, heaven forbid, we do fail, our efforts will not be in vain.”

Grantaire just shook his head. “No,” he said, almost sadly, “but they’ll be nothing more than a footnote in a history textbook that a student won’t even bother to read, or an illustration on the folly of hope.”

“Get out,” Enjolras told him, his voice quiet and flat. When Grantaire made no effort to move, Enjolras’s voice raised slightly. “I said, get _out_.”

For a moment, it looked like Grantaire might argue further, but instead, he drained his cup of wine, stood, and slunk from the room, his expression turning somber as he fumbled with his jacket. He was paying no attention to where he walked and almost bowled Jehan over. “Prouvaire!” he exclaimed, reaching out to steady himself against Jehan. “I apologize. I did not know you were still here.”

Jehan’s expression was unusually sober. “I was waiting to talk to you,” he said quietly, and jerked his head toward the main room of the café, which was long since empty -- the proprietor of the Musain was used to Les Amis staying until all hours of the night and had retired to his bedchamber some hours hence. “Will you come with me?”

Curiosity piqued, Grantaire followed Jehan, his tiredness and drunkenness slipping away at how serious his friend was. “Whatever is the matter?” he asked, his tone turning urgent. “Is there something wrong, something I can assist with?”

“That depends,” Jehan said, taking a deep breath before asking, “Did you tell him?”

Grantaire stared at him. “Did I tell who what?” he asked blankly.

Jehan waved an agitated hand toward the door to the back room. “Did you tell Enjolras what was coming?” he asked urgently, and when Grantaire still looked baffled, he reached out to take Grantaire’s hands in his and demand, “Did you tell him that the June Rebellion will fail?”

Grantaire’s mind went completely blank, and he gaped at Jehan, his eyes wide and his mouth dry. “How -- how do you--?” he stammered, unable to finish the sentence.

Jehan smiled slightly, though it was a strained and weary sort of smile. “I told you,” he said simply. “Back when we first met, I gave you the clue you would need to realize, though it seems you did not. After you said you had a degree in photography, after I realized -- well, I told you my favorite poet was Edgar Allan Poe.” Grantaire shrugged, only barely recalling the conversation and not following what Jehan meant until he elaborated, “Grantaire, _The Raven_ wasn’t published until 1845.”

“Well, forgive me for not paying better attention in English class,” Grantaire muttered without much heat, his eyes searching Jehan’s and his mind overflowing with questions. “You could have given me a better hint, though, that you were -- that you’re in the same situation as me.” Jehan rolled his eyes genially, and Grantaire pressed, “When did you come from?”

“June 2011,” Jehan said softly, his smile fading slightly. “I was fifteen, hadn’t even started at _lycée_.” He laughed, though it was without much humor. “I never even got to see _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2_ in the cinema.”

Grantaire laughed as well, feeling flooded with relief. He was not alone -- for the first time in over a year, Grantaire was not alone in the insanity he struggled every day to make sense of, and he could not stop himself from reaching out to pull Jehan into a hug, hugging him as if he was holding everything that had been missing from his life. “You didn’t miss much,” he told Jehan, his voice muffled slightly. “The book was better.”

Though Jehan chuckled softly, he quickly grew serious again. “But you didn’t answer my question,” he said. “Did you tell Enjolras?”

“No,” Grantaire said, his own smile slipping away. “I wanted to, to get him to give up this stupid plan. You know what happens as well as I do, so I tried but -- he wouldn’t listen.”

“Good,” Jehan said, and Grantaire stared at him.

“Good?” he repeated. “Our friends face almost certain death and you and I have the ability to stop it. In fact--” He jerked away from Jehan, his expression hardening, “you’ve been here longer than I, and still you’ve let this madness continue?”

Jehan sighed heavily. “Yes,” he said simply. “Because you have to understand, Grantaire -- you can’t change the past.”

Grantaire’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?” he asked.

Jehan smiled sadly and shrugged. “Do you think I haven’t tried?” he asked. “I was here before the July Revolution, and nothing I did or said changed anything. The past is written, and I don’t think we have the ability to change it.” Grantaire looked mutinous and Jehan sighed again. “Did you ever watch Doctor Who back in -- back in the future, I guess?”

Grantaire shrugged. “I’m familiar with it, mostly from friends who wouldn’t shut up about it. Not a huge fan of the Twelfth Doctor, though.”

Jehan’s eyes widened, and for a moment, he sounded as excited as the fifteen-year-old kid he would have been in 2011. “Oh, man, Matt Smith isn’t still the Doctor?” He shook his head, clearly trying to rid himself of his disappointment. “Whatever. Are you familiar with the concept of fixed points in time?”

“I think so,” Grantaire said slowly. “Things that, like, can’t be changed without the world collapsing or something stupid?” Jehan nodded and Grantaire shook his head slightly. “Are you trying to tell me that the June Rebellion is a fixed point in time?”

“What I’m trying to tell you,” Jehan said softly, “is that from what I’ve gleaned thus far, everything major that would alter the known historic landscape is fixed. Individual lives, friendships, the things that don’t change the course of history -- those can be tampered with, obviously, or else you and I being here alone would be enough to mess with things. But the big things -- they can’t be changed.”

Grantaire could practically feel his heart sink down to his stomach, and he abruptly asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

Jehan shrugged. “Because you should know that you don’t have to stay.” Grantaire just stared at him, and Jehan said softly, “I wouldn’t hold it against you. I know you don’t want to watch him -- watch them die. And you staying won’t change that.”

“But you know what’s coming, too,” Grantaire said, his hands shaking slightly, and he longed for a bottle of something, anything to drink. “Why aren’t you leaving?”

Jehan smiled sadly. “It’ll sound stupid, especially to you,” he said, “but Les Amis are my friends.”

He lifted his chin defiantly, clearly ready for Grantaire to tell him he was being an idiot, but Grantaire didn’t. He understood, understood deep in his bones what Jehan meant. He could imagine Jehan as he must have been in 2011, a scrawny kid who never quite fit in, the kind of kid who wrote poetry in the margins of his schoolbooks and drew on himself with blue ballpoint pen, a shy, quiet kid who was picked on constantly. He could see it as clearly as if he had lived it, because in some ways, he had.

And he understood perfectly why Jehan wouldn’t leave the first friends he had ever known, no matter what the consequences might be.

“You don’t have to stay,” Jehan repeated, “though I can’t help wishing you would. They need you, Grantaire.”

Grantaire laughed dryly, the laugh seeming to stick in his throat. “Who needs me?” he scoffed. “Enjolras?”

Jehan didn’t laugh. “Yeah, he does,” he said. “And you need him. But...I think you already knew that.” Grantaire shook his head but didn’t reply, and Jehan sighed. “So will you stay?” he asked. “Or, knowing now what I’ve told you, are going to go?”

Shaking his head again, Grantaire looked down at the ground, his mind whirling with things he longed to say, but before he could answer, the door to the back room opened and Enjolras stepped out, scowling at them both. “Grantaire,” he said, a little stiffly. “Will you come back in here?” Grantaire looked up at him, surprised, and Enjolras huffed a sigh. “Please?” he added reluctantly.

Grantaire glanced at Jehan, who looked anxious, and reached out to squeeze his hand. “Do not worry, mon ami,” Grantaire told him in an undertone as he made to follow Enjolras inside. “I’ll not say something I’ll regret.”

Enjolras frowned at Grantaire as he reentered the room, his hands clasped behind his back and something unreadable in his expression. “I wish to apologize,” he said stiffly, his words carefully chosen. “I was harsh with you before. Combeferre has spoken to me several times about that, and how I need to be more careful to not discourage people from our cause, no matter their...proclivities.”

“I assume you speak of my proclivity towards cynicism and not towards the Greek love between brothers in arms,” Grantaire said, falling into their familiar pattern of banter as easily as he fell into a chair, propping his feet up on the table as he gave Enjolras a small, curving smile. 

For once, Enjolras did not rise to the bait. “I speak of the fact that you have not yet seen what the world has to offer,” he said. “You do not see the potential that is in front of us. You see the world only as it is now, not as it could be, and so it is little surprise you do not see a world worth fighting for.”

Grantaire sat up, frowning. “Is that what you think?” he asked quietly. “You think I do not see what could -- what will be?” He laughed, a sudden, clear sound, thinking of every event that fell between the moment in the past in which they stood and the future or present he would never again know. “Oh, I can see it. I know it as if it were truth written plainly in front of me. In the world I envision--” He cut himself off, feeling the emotion welling in his chest, and took a deep breath to steady himself. “In the world I envision, there is freedom the likes of which we have never even dreamed, freedom not only for the working classes but freedom from colonization, from forced labor, freedom for men and women alike to make an honest living. And yes, there are shackles, too, because there will always be those who seek to enslave the best of humanity, but in the world I see, there are also those who dedicate their entire lives to breaking those chains.” He could not seem to stem the tide of words tumbling from him or the longing he felt in his heart for the world he had once known, but took strength from the enraptured look on Enjolras’s face. “I see a world in which there is freedom to dream, and not only dream but achieve those dreams, where education is no longer limited to the bourgeois but where every child can learn. I see a world where men and women alike are not bound by duties to their gender but can express themselves however they wish, where men can love men and women can love women and they can spend their lives together. I see--”

Without warning, Enjolras kissed him, his lips cutting off Grantaire’s rambling the most effective way possible. For a moment, Grantaire just stood there, frozen, unwilling or unable to believe this moment was truly happening. But then he kissed Enjolras back, wrapping his fingers in Enjolras’s curls and holding on to him as if it would stop the inexorable march of fate to what awaited him in June.

When finally they pulled apart, Enjolras reached up to cup Grantaire’s cheek, looking at him as if he had never truly seen him before. “Then why…?” he started, but Grantaire just shook his head and tore his gaze away.

“Because I do not believe what you are planning will bring about the future I see,” he said softly.

For a moment, Enjolras looked confused and a little hurt, but then he shook his head and took a step closer to Grantaire. “Then perhaps you merely need more convincing,” he said, his eyes dark, but Grantaire just smiled sadly.

“There is nothing you can do, nothing you can offer me, that will convince me,” he said, and Enjolras took a step back, his hands falling to his side and his expression defiant.

“Not even if I asked you to accompany me to my bedroom?” he asked, the challenge clear in his voice.

Grantaire’s heart stuttered to a stop, only to start up again with a painfully quick rhythm. “I would not have you make an offer you would regret following through on,” he said quietly. “For come morning, I will still be the libertine who is no more than a nuisance to you and your cause.”

But Enjolras merely smiled. “Perhaps I have more faith in my ability to persuade than you,” he told Grantaire archly. “Especially now that I know you do believe.”

“I believe--” Grantaire started, before cutting himself off, not trusting the words he was about to utter. So much of him had craved this moment for so long that he wanted nothing more than to give in, to let Enjolras lead him back to his. But another part of him, the part of his heart that had broken when Jehan told him that the past could not be changed, knew that he would not find solace in Enjolras’s offer. 

So instead, he closed the space between them and kissed Enjolras, wishing that the kiss would say everything that he could not. “I believe it is better if I go,” he heard himself say as if from a distance. “You have much work to do.”

Enjolras looked surprised, and for a moment, disappointed. “I’ll not stop trying to convince you,” he warned.

“Worry not about convincing me, only about convincing the masses,” Grantaire told him, stepping away slowly.

For a moment, Enjolras’s eyes searched his. “I feel as if you are saying goodbye,” he told Grantaire, who shook his head.

“Not goodbye,” Grantaire told him with a quick smile. “Only goodnight.” He could hardly explain to Enjolras that he was saying goodbye to the future he had once hoped for and for a past that could never be. Instead, he doffed an imaginary cap towards Enjolras and turned and left before he could once again stop himself.

Outside the Musain, he paused, leaning against the side of the building in hopes that it would give him strength. He glanced back at the doorway, feeling a resolution steeling within himself, and turned away again. He whistled lowly at a passing gamin, who came over warily. “Will you deliver a message for me?” he asked, fumbling in his pocket for a coin. “A message for M. Jean Prouvaire. Tell him--”

He paused, glancing back at the Musain once more. “Tell him that I will stay. Tell him that there is no ship now that can bear me hence.” He looked back at the gamin, who looked curious. “He’ll know of what I speak.”

After making the gamin repeat the message back to him, he let the boy go, watching as he scurried off into the night. Then Grantaire started towards home, shoving his hands in his pockets and whistling something off-key. He paused and smiled just slightly when he recognized the tune: “I’m a Believer” by the Monkees.

****

And as he meandered slowly up the street, he sang softly to himself, “I’m a believer, I couldn’t leave her if I tried.”


End file.
